Shopping and Cooking and Reading

What a good weekend. On Thursday night I actually said, "I dont feel like I need to get out this weekend." I had a bunch of stuff to do that was pressing on me. So, we scrapped our camping trip to the mountains and stayed home. Friday Chris was out with her friend Lisa at the bookstore and Lisa recommended Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food. We actually didn't have a general how to do most everything basic cookbook. And this one is great. Since reading B. Kingsolver's "Animal Vegetable Miracle" we've been trying to eat more locally and generally get the carbon footprint down on our food. Eating locally generally means there's been less fuel put into shipping. Though there are some interesting wrinkles in the concept. Any way, I also got to meet with a guy from Acre Gourmet last spring. He told me all about how they source their food locally and get to have personal relationships with small operator farmers. So, beyond the certified label's for Organic or Free Trade, they actually have the bonus of personal relationships. He feels this really enriches the human environment by building direct relationships instead of consumer/middleman.../supplier business relationships that are less personal. There could be something to that. Saturday morning we made it to the Alamany Farmers Market. What a wonderful time. It was insanely crowded, but we expected that. There was an old lady playing the saw with a dancing wooden cat. No kidding. I had a delightful pork tamale and we picked up a load of food. Back home, we a really simple dish from A.Water's book - a squash and penne pasta. Tasteee

Planet Granite in The Presidio is OPEN :)

For months I've been waiting and waiting for this new gym to open. I've been following the progress online and running by every few weeks when I've been out for a run on Chrissy Field. And, now it's opened a month ahead of schedule!

http://www.planetgranite.com/OldPG/Presidio/sf_picindex.html

Chris and I joined on Sunday - the year membership is less than we'd pay for the Y - which cant possibly last. We should have bought 2 years. The climbing is the best I've ever seen. They've got plenty of routes and an unbelieveable variety of bouldering. They even have an off-width crack and several other great cracks - one splitter! Very fun. So, I'm stoked. It is really fun to be able to go with Chris. Fortunately, it's on her way to work, so we've been able to get over there for a workout and still make it to her office by 9. My mornings have never been so wonderful.

Hetch Hetchy Trip

We had a great little trip away. The flowers in Tuolomne are all but completely gone. I have no idea what the late blooming tiny bushy purple ones are called. We've both got tricky ankles right now, so we took it easy with a couple short hikes up to Elizabeth Lake which is just below Unicorn Peak. And, we make it a few miles around Hetch Hetchy to a dry waterfall view. Back at the car, Chris' themometer registered 85 in the shade and 104 in the sun. The breeze itself was hot. We were pretty sapped of strength but it was really worth it. There's an amazing wall across the lake - with probably another 300 feet below the water.

It really stirs my imagination to see the canyon stretch up toward White Wolf and Glen Aulin. I'd really like to make that trip in the spring. The Grand Canyon of Tuolomne is supposed to be really amazing and relatively untraveled.

And, the abiding question of the worth of the reservoir really sticks in my mind. I hear that the reservoir's water reserve is redundant now that other areas have been developed. And, it certainly is an affront the concept of National Parks. But, water shortages seem to be mounting and we wont be able to rely on glacial storage in the future. In any case, we're definitely sacrificing some terriffic climbing and an amazing canyon with its potential ecotour revenue for the sake of an enormous bucket.

Interview with Matt from Kiva

Geoffrey Desa, my Entrepreneurial Process professor got the class off to a fast start with our first assignment. Typically, I don't expect anything outside of some reading for the first few weeks of a term. But, he set our first assignment, "Interview an entrepreneur and give a brief report in one week." OK. Well, I'm really trying to focus my class projects on areas of interest. So, the challenge was to find someone who could meet with me on short notice who was also a social entrepenuer or working in the sustainability field somehow. Good luck - right? I do love living in SF. Grace Turkis, my good ole coworker is volunteering at Kiva and she put me together with Matt Flannery. We met for an hour. I am very grateful for his time.

In short, Kiva matches lenders (not donors)with aspiring entrepenuers in developing nations. The results of this kind of micro lending development have been tremendous. The waste is much lower than working through corrupt governments and the direct empowerment is much higher.

Chris and I always have the very best conversations on our out of town trips together. We've decided to get behind someone today - it will only take $20 of our money to help some unfortunately born business person break out of the cycle of poverty. And, we'll get regular updates on how their business is progressing AND how the loan is being paid back. After a while, we'll get to repick and reinvest that money into another venture. Very very fun.

Read all about Kiva on their website. www.kiva.org